Do you ever say to yourself, oh,
my God, I cannot remember the word?
I wanted to say something, but I was
fumbling and most of you do that.
And this, this question right here can't
remember words when I actually need them.
This is the literal problem that everybody faces.
You go into a meeting, you don't know what to say.
But don't worry.
I believe that a lot of you probably do
not have the right technique to remember a word.
And you don't know what to do with the remembered word.
And that is why you are unable to get the right word.
In today's lesson, I'm going to show you
the best techniques to memorize vocabulary and how
to use them in real conversations.
Believe me, I have used this technique.
In fact, a lot of these techniques.
And today I never fall at a loss for words.
So stay with me until the end, because I
can promise you that if you stick with these
basic techniques, very simple techniques, you will learn how
to remember words and use them in real conversations.
So we are going to start with mnemonics.
Don't get scared of the word.
It looks a little difficult, but
I promise it's very easy.
By the way, the M is
silent, so you simply say mnemonics.
It's not monomics, but mnemonics.
Anyway, what is it?
It is a mental shortcut to
help you remember a complex concept.
Now, what happens is that when you are learning a
new word, you learn by looking at an image.
Even when we were growing up as children,
we always were given an image and we
associated an image with the word guess what?
Till today, we actually learn the same way.
Because we are human after all, right?
Even though we grow up, our learning stays the same.
So how do I associate a mental image with my word?
Let's have a look.
Let's assume that you are learning
a word called insight, okay?
But it's difficult for you to memorize this word.
What would you do?
This is what you must do.
Use mnemonics by breaking up this word into two parts.
Now, the word in, what is the picture that
gets evoked in your mind with the word in?
What do you think?
A box like this.
Because in refers to something
which is enclosed inside, right?
So in the box so I would look at
a picture of something which is enclosed from the
four sides, and I'm looking inside of it.
And the words sight.
Sight means to see.
So we are looking at something.
So therefore, if you want to understand the
word insight, you have a mental image of
something inside, which means enclosed by something and
you are looking at something inside.
In other words, it tells you that it is an
act of looking at something at a very deep level.
So when you want to see something at
a very deep level, understand something in an
indepth way that is called insight.
So for example, I would say I have
insight about the topic of phonology because I
understand that at a very deep level, right?
So insight is to understand something, to see something
at a very deep level on the inside.
So in this way, even though you may not have known
the word, by looking at it, by simply breaking up the
word into two parts and getting a mental image of each
part of the word, you can guess what the meaning could
be and remember the word through those associated meetings with the
mental image and start using them.
So that was Mnemonics, the
first vocabulary memorization technique.
Now I'm going to show
you another very interesting technique.
Stay with me.
The next one is called word association.
OK, so what does this really mean?
Don't worry about the big words.
I'll tell you what it means.
You need to look for the
meaning of words within a phrase.
Now sometimes you have a phrase, it could
be an idiom, it could be a phrasal
verb, it could be just an expression.
And you're like, oh my God, what does this mean?
Or can I even use it in this conversation? Don't worry.
What do you have to do?
You've got to look for the meaning of the
word inside of that phrase and start guessing.
What does that mean?
So if I have a phrase like give the green signal.
Now you know that the green signal refers to saying
yes, when you're at the traffic light, the traffic signal,
what happens when the green signal is on?
It basically means that you
can go, you have permission.
So this idiom or this phrase basically means
to go or to go ahead with something,
to get permission to go ahead with something.
So word association is basically looking
for obvious indicators of word meanings. Okay?
If you want to remember a word, remember one
thing that if you look at a word and
if you can guess the meaning of the word
from the words inside of that phrase, that will
really help you remember and become good at guessing.
Okay?
A person who reads vocabulary
eventually becomes good at vocabulary. Why?
Because they end up associating words through the meaning
of words in a phrase that they've learned or
they use mnemonics like we saw before.
Let me show you another example of word association.
There is a phrase called for eternity.
Now, if I want to use for eternity, how do I use it?
Let's have a look.
What could it possibly mean?
The word eternity comes from the word eternal. Right?
Eternity, eternal kind of sounds similar.
Well, it does, right?
So what does eternal mean?
It means something that is forever
timeless till the end of time.
So what does that really mean?
It means a long time.
So sometimes when you are sarcastic, what do you say?
You say, hey, I'm not going to stand here for eternity.
It basically means I'm not going to
stand here for a long time.
Okay, so eternity, this is a great phrase to use, but
if you don't know what it means or if you want
to use it, but you and I'm sure whether you're using
it correctly, try guessing the word, the word association, which is
the meaning of the word inside of this phrase.
So eternal is the word that is inside the phrase
which gives you a clue to the actual meaning. OK.
All right, then let's look at some more techniques.
The next one is borrowed meaning across languages.
Now, let me tell you that English is a
language which has borrowed words from other languages, right?
You don't know that.
Let me show you how.
This is a very important word, in fact,
a very common word these days guru. Okay?
So guru is actually a Sanskrit word.
It's not an English word, but now
it is part of the English dictionary.
Now, if you want to use this word but
you don't know what it means, you can kind
of go back to its origin, its Sanskrit origin.
What does it mean?
It talks about a person.
Guru in Sanskrit means a person
who everyone looks up to.
So therefore, logically, a person who everyone looks up
to would be somebody who knows more than you.
Who is that? A teacher. Right.
So that's a guru.
Okay, so a guru is a person who
saw, who everyone looks up to, who is
obviously a teacher or an expert at something.
But then again, we have another example library. Okay?
Now, library is an English word, but
again, it was borrowed from another language.
It was borrowed from Spanish, right?
So what does library mean?
The word library comes from the word
libro, which basically means a book.
And library essentially means a
collection of books, right?
So we go to the library. Why?
Because we read libras.
We read books.
All right, then.
So there are many words like that.
If you look at the dictionary and go back to
the origin, it will help you really remember the words
and get the concept clear in your mind.
But then once you've done those techniques, there's
something more that you need to do.
It's not enough to just memorize.
Now you've got to start using words in context.
What do I mean by that?
Number one, once you have understood the memorization
techniques, make a list of high frequency words.
What are high frequency words?
Words that you use very frequently.
These would be like the top of the
words that you use every single day.
OK, now why do you do that?
You have to do that because you need
to make sentences with these words, okay?
Just because you know a word, you know a
meaning, do you think you're going to remember it?
I don't think so.
I've got many students who tell
me that they know the word.
They know the meaning, but they do not remember it
when they have to in a meeting, in a conversation. Why?
Because they have not done this.
They don't know how to use words in context.
So learn the word, learn to remember
it with mnemonics and word associations and
knowing it from the other languages.
But then you've got to start using it in
context, which means make a list of those high
frequency words, use them in a sentence and then
prepare those sentences for everyday situations.
Which means after making a sentence, ask yourself, can
I use it today in a certain situation.
For example, give the green signal.
Now I might call my boss and say to
him, hey, I need to send this report.
Why don't you give me the green signal?
So what have I done here?
I've actually taken a high frequency phrase.
I would call it a high frequency phrase
because it's a phrase with many words.
I have made a sentence with it, but now I
have actively sought out an opportunity to use it.
So I have gone ahead and immediately used it in
real time, in a real conversation with my boss, right?
So learn the words, memorize the words, but
then also use those words in context, okay?
But then don't just stop there.
Like I said, it's important to bring
vocabulary to life, which means you need
to use the words in real conversations.
Now, this is the difficult part and
this is where people stop, okay?
A lot of people feel like if they
go ahead and say something, a new word,
they might sound funny, they might sound weird.
Well, don't stop there because this
is where you break that problem.
You know, that problem goes away when you go ahead
and take that step of faith and do the right
thing, which is use it in a real conversation.
And of course you need to
keep a vocabulary tracker, okay?
So just like you progress, you monitor your
progress when you're doing anything, whether it is
watching your weight, watching how healthy you are,
your progress at work, your performance.
Similarly, keep a vocabulary tracker.
Make a list of words and say, have I used
these new words in this week or in this month?
And you know if you have or not.
So be honest with yourself by keeping a vocabulary
tracker which makes you accountable to yourself, okay?
And of course, like I said, be consistent.
Consistency is key when you are learning language.
You will not learn all words in one
day or maybe even in a month.
But if you are consistent, let's say across six
months, seven months, you will see a great difference.
A difference where you do not feel
like you are fumbling for words.
You don't know what to say because now the
words will organically start flowing out in your conversations.
Why?
Because eventually you are going to find
continual opportunities to use these new words.
Okay, so these are the different techniques to memorize
vocabulary and to use the newly learned words.
I can guarantee that if you do this,
your goal to be really fluent in English
is not going to be very far away.
So keep learning, keep practicing, and tell
me which vocabulary technique you loved and
which one you think is worth using.
I'll see you soon.
Take care and have a lovely day.
Day bye.